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Friday, November 18, 2005

My take on ‘Sivakasi’

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(Sivakasi with Hema – “relationship” that only can be made in the Tamil movies and Sivakasi making his “explosive” entrance – Picture source: www.indiaglitz.com).It was a lazy afternoon, couple of days ago when we decided to head out to see a movie. I am not a big fan of Tamil Movies but being curious, we decided to see “Sivakasi” starring Vijay (heard a lot of this movie from my cousins). Being a working day, as expected, the theater was only quarter full (which meant we were able to get the best seat in the house).

Sivakasi (played by Vijay) is a welder in Chennai who falls in love (or was the other way around) with rich girl, Hema (played the slim, beautiful Asin). After a long boring story of how Sivakasi and Hema falls in love, the story pick up the pace when Sivakasi returns to his village and realised his elder brother (played by the great Prakash Raj) is now a politician and had been treating his mother & sister badly. Sivakasi set to put things right and that makes the bulk of the 2nd half of the movie.

I was impressed by Vijay in the movie, Thullatha Manamum Thullum which made a great impression with my Malay colleagues in my old workplace (one of them even saw the movie 7 times even though do not understand Tamil). I was even impressed of Vijay’s other movies, Ghilli (I liked the music, jokes and of course Prakash Raj’s acting) and Thirupatchi (one thing: the hero finally gets to kill the bad guys in a Tamil movie).

In Sivakasi, he was maintaining his form and I believe that he did a good job (couple that with some style & good lines, you have a winner). So, for those who have seen or going to see the movie, this is my take on the movie:-

Plus Points

1. Music - The song “Deepavali Deepavali” was fast paced coupled with great dancing (a bit refreshing). It was really matching to the song and luckily, did not need 20 “background” dancers to color up the scene. I first heard the song in Sunway Pyramid when there had special dance for the Deeparaya celebrations. The rest of the music & songs are ok – the one with Nayantara was a big oomph!

2. Prakash Raj – for me, he is still one of the best actors around. His expression as the bad guy is almost flawless whilst at the same time, amusing. He was great as the evil elder brother. He was great in Ghilli with his famous “Chellam, I luv you” but there was less time for him here to do similar stuff. In a way, it was a waste of great talent.

3. Comedy – forget about Vijay or his side-kicks. The real funny guy was Prakash Raj’s sidekick (the guy with the long beard)

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The best part was when Vijay blackmailing Prakash Raj leading Prakash offering money in return for the evidence. He said 1? and then 2? – Vijay will keep disagreeing. His side-kick will then butts in and say “Anne (brother), just make it 10”. Prakash will agree (thinking it is just 10,000) but will get a shock when his side-kick gives Vijay 100,000 (or 1,000,000 – I am not sure what is 10 kodi amounts to) instead the intended 10,000 (10 ayiram). When Prakash Raj scolds his side-kick, the side-kick will ask “Are we in school, learning 1, 2, 3? Next time, make it clear lah”. How true!

Minus Points

1. Story line – the pace only picks up when Vijay travels back to his village. Until then, the director just wasted time to show the “love” connection between Sivakasi & Hema (see 2 below). The duel between Vijay and Prakash should be started in the beginning – it would have been great to see each of them outwitting each other

There was plenty of “holes” in the story line which remained unexplained – like how Sivakasi’s childhood friends still remember him and was daring to go against Prakash Raj, how did Sivakasi survived in the city when he ran away from his village, how he managed to blend in when he came back, etc. Perhaps there was not much time for the director to give the detail in the 2.5 hours – I will live with that assumption

I will exclude the part of how a bad guy flies in the air (spinning 3 times some more) after being punched (only once!) by Sivakasi. It has to be…otherwise it is not a Tamil movie, right?

2. I know that this is just a movie…ok, Tamil movie where only here a beautiful rich girl can fall in love with an ordinary "street" guy over a period of just half a day. Nothing is new here – we are very much immune to it.

But what gave “a big a slap to my face” was the fact that the girl’s father who has 10 bungalows and 6 jeweler shops just agrees to the wedding without much hesitation. The father after “seeing the light” agrees to wed off his only daughter to the man who comes in the house with a “parang” threatening to kill him & his sons. WTF! One lame scene of the father using the police and that was all the “fight” he gave. Come on, even in movie, no fathers have done that without a big fight (hmmm, how things have changed).

Anyway, the movie was entertaining and worth the money spent on the ticket. However, at end of the day, I still prefer the movie “Boys” as the best Tamil Movie that I have seen in the last 3 years. It was at least more believable to the very end..